11-16-2021, 10:14 PM
I
nside, deep beneath the veneer of quartz and granite, there is a world so full of voices that it is deafening. The sound of it follows her like the sound of thunder follows light. It echoes so fiercely behind her eyes that she can feel her own pulse stuttering and stumbling like a fledgling trying to learn the rhythm of it. In each rotten root, and each seed full bit of fox jaws, she can taste every dream of that deafening world. She can taste them like she had the pollen in the spring of her birth land.The flavors of it, and the melody of it, break her heart.
Days have slipped by her as if the mountains have swallowed up the tick, tick, ticking of time that shifted around her. It takes her a moment to truly know her, or remember her. Elli has tried to believe that the entire night was a dream, that it never happened and the snowflake that catches on her eyelash was simply just a dream caught in a catch and one she carries with her now. But the recognition of this girl when it comes in full is too sharp, too strong, for her to continue believing as such. Maybe someone else would not have seen it, whatever there is behind this girl’s eyes, what might be behind her own eyes the night her mane became garnished in snowflakes. Elliana notices it though. She notices it like she notices each constellation in the sky. It is that part of her that wants to draw lines between all the pieces of Despoina that cause her to frown, to become unsure.
She isn’t sure how to respond to such a question, she tries to pretend one more time that she does not recognize her, but Elliana is not so cruel, at least not in this way, not right now. When she breaks the heavy, full of sorrow, silence her voice is whisper thin as she swallows up a hundred little lies. I've been well enough. Elliana wonders if the other mare can taste the taint of lasting fear in her words, the way it rots the crisp night air around them.
She grows quiet. There is not a better answer she can give. She doesn’t ask how she is, doesn’t return the question because she thinks it is probably much the same. Words finally come to her and she catches them like fireflies between the drifting moon-dust of her thoughts as she drifts a blue eyed gaze upwards. If you could draw anything in the stars, what would it be? She asks, a game she and her brother used to play as a children. And then, she told herself she wouldn’t speak anymore of that night, but Elliana is the worst liar to herself. I’m sorry, for whatever those monsters showed you, became for you—it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
..but nightmares are dreams too.
@despoina